feedback

Originally posted at Clarisse Thorn: Pro-Sex Outreach, Open-Minded Feminism

I love it when people email me interesting questions. This letter is posted with permission:

Hi Clarisse –

I found your coming-out article on “Time Out” and I am both grateful and fascinated by your story. I apologize if this email is a bit personal, but I am unsure where to get honest non-judgmental advice. Recently a lover introduced me to SM and while I have always considered myself a fairly sexually tolerant and open person, I found myself unwilling to let go and trust with a scenario. On the surface, I feel I would very much enjoy what BDSM has to offer, but in practice I am unable to fully appreciate? the fantasy.

My questions to you are: did it take a bit a time for you to … hm … let go of yourself with this type of play?

It seems from your article that you recognized this lifestyle was / is a “fit” for you. How do you know if it is the right lifestyle for you?

Also, you mentioned some therapists who specialize in understanding the needs of alternative lifestyle folks. Could you direct me to some resources for additional information?

Here’s my response:

I recently received this interesting and, of course, incredibly flattering letter, and offered to give the project more publicity by publishing the letter to my blog. (Which isn’t to say that I need flattery to give good projects publicity, but I am human, you know?) I’ve already connected Stephanie with some people who can help her, but if you know anyone else who can, or are in a position to assist with her project yourself — or are simply interested and want to be kept informed of its process! — then you should totally email her: [ sgoldfarb at luc dot edu ].

Dear Clarisse,

My name is Stephanie Goldfarb and I am a graduate student at Loyola University. I am currently working on a research project that is focused on assessing the Chicago Public School’s sex/health education system. Specifically, I am interested in learning whether or not this system meets the needs of LGBT students. I also aim to formulate a working definition of “feminist sex/health” education. Though this will ultimately be a 25-30 page paper, it may evolve into my Masters thesis. As a leader in the sex positive community in Chicago, I thought it might be good to ask your opinions on this matter. Also, I am currently on the search for primary documents (such as CPS sex education curriculum and/or lesson plans) and I wonder if you might be able to point me in a good direction. Some of the articles on your wordpress site, especially “Liberal, sex-positive sex education: what’s missing” might be approved as primary sources for me, so I might end up citing you. Anyway, thank you for all the incredible work you do Clarisse. You are truly inspiring, and the sex positive community is beyond lucky to have you organizing, writing, and speaking out about the issues that are important to us.

- Stephanie Goldfarb
Loyola University Chicago
MSW / MA Women’s Studies Gender Studies Candidate
sgoldfarb at luc dot edu

I’ve been getting a lot of very encouraging email lately; here’s some excerpts from an exchange I found particularly interesting. Posted with permission:

Hi Clarisse,

A friend showed me your blog and I just wanted to say that I think you’re fantastic.

I’m a student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and I recently facilitated a Feminist Student Union “SexualiTea” — a discussion topic with, yeah, tea — on masculinities in society and at Reed and I used your article Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 3: Space For Men along with the Every Girl / Every Boy poster at the beginning to spark thoughts for the group. This event was a huge success! We had over 50 people in attendance, including 10 or 15 men. It was a really honest, vulnerable, productive, and holistic conversation. We talked about gender binary pressures as children; how can personality traits be de-gendered so that a male who takes pride in being strong isn’t intrinsically stream-rolling women as equally strong leaders or pushing them into an opposite weak category; a transman brought up what behaviors he had to lose as the result of transitioning and changing his presented gender — “I was told I’d have to tone down or lose my crude, perverted, and loud sense of humor because as a man I’d be seen as a Really Big Creep and not just a rugby dyke”; etc. The men were really forthcoming and aside from a minor terrible moment that I was able to turn around as the faciliatator (“so having seen Jackson Katz speak about gender violence, I would be interested in hearing any personal stories about rape from the women in the room” “actually, rape is a large enough burden to bear without having to educate men about rape, in public, whenever rape is brought up as a topic presumably by someone who’s never experienced it. I’d suggest reading up on your own and educating yourself and listening with respect if and when a survivor decides to tell you about their experience.”) — but really, the biggest obstacle that came up was the dynamic of female feminist students purporting 2nd wave views who obliviously steamrolled the conversation, spoke the loudest, the most frequent, tried to control the conversation with an specific end goal in mind, and took up the most space. It almost seemed like the end question for me on this topic wasn’t how to get men to be in these spaces to critically examine masculinities and let male sexualities flourish because many men were not hesitant to show up and take part and really try their best, but how to hold mainstream, second wave feminists accountable for their own oppressive dynamics and how to get them to relax, ease up, open up some space, cede some old ideology?